I was diagnosed with Asthma when I was just 3. This was back in the early ’60’s and well before inhalers. I could tell you horror stories of treatments tried by doctors who actually visited (yes, they actually came to your home) our home to see what they could do. Anyways, from the very first medications (which was a yellow liquid that smelled like bananas but sure did not taste like them) to a pill (I don’t remember the pill’s name either but it got your heart beating so fast!) that did not work at all… to what I call my miracle drug (Advair 500/50 diskus). The improvements in treatments with medications, to me figuring out how to meditate early on in life to make it through countless battles of severe attacks, was astonishing to me. We’ve come a long way! There is just one thing that really bothers me about asthma, just once I want to have others, who do not believe that asthma is real or a condition that it can actually be life threatening and know, just how it feels to be in the grips of a severe attack! The best way, I can explain it to others is, it’s like breathing through a cocktail straw and never being able to get any other air in but through that tiny straw … over and over as seconds feel like days till you feel the very life drain from yourself. I have been hospitalized many many times through out the years for severe asthma attacks. Sometimes, even family members don’t understand either. That really hurts too 🙁 . Staying away from sibling’s homes because they have 3 dogs and a cat and hearing “oh that is just stupid, animals can’t make that big of a difference.” Or to not go on a hike on the trails because the humidity is 98% and seeing the disappointed look of others toward you for not going along. I am so glad that I found this site just to have a place to vent and to know that I am not alone feeling like many others that just don’t think that asthma is a ” real ” condition! Thank you Asthma.net, you are making a difference !! 🙂